[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army":3,"chapter-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-285":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","A Little Soldier of the Late Ming Border Army",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1205574,1561,"Chapter 285: Aren't Wang Dou's Troops All Dead?","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-285",285,"\u003Cp>The column advanced across the dry yellow earth, countless footsteps and horse hooves striking the road surface and kicking up sky-filling dust. The Xuan-Da army numbered over ten thousand, half of them cavalry, and in addition there were nearly a thousand carts and horses carrying cannon, provisions, baggage and other supplies — a vast, seemingly endless procession stretching beyond sight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou turned to look back: within the army was a sea of red. Yang Guozhu’s and Hu Dawei’s cavalry all wore red helmets and armor; Wang Dou’s Shunxiang troops wore red cotton-lined woolen overcoats or red cotton-lined woolen cloaks — also a field of striking red. Night Scouts constantly raced back and forth, relaying intelligence of the enemy ahead and the road conditions, guiding the main army along the correct line of march.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“My lord, ahead is the Juma River. Once across, it is barely forty li to Zhuozhou; by early afternoon our main army can reach the slave camp.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For this expedition, Yang Guozhu personally ordered one of his Company Commanders to lead a thousand cavalry as the vanguard. The remainder — his two thousand cavalry from the Xuanfu Garrison main battalion, plus Wang Dou’s six thousand Shunxiang troops — formed the center column, with the mass of carts and baggage moving within it. Bringing up the rear were Hu Dawei, Xu Yue’e, and the three thousand men of the Viceroy’s Personal Battalion under Company Commander Yang Guodong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The three divisions were separated by less than half a li. By noon, the Xuan-Da army had already passed Laishui county seat and was pressing straight toward the Juma River from the north, a mighty force about to set foot on the soil of Zhuozhou.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As the army passed Laishui county seat, the defending troops on the wall were both startled and fearful, but seeing the banners outside the city were Ming forces, they relaxed slightly. The local Garrison Commander sent men to ask which division the troops outside belonged to. Yang Guozhu and the others could not be bothered to answer and simply swept past beneath the walls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Watching the cloud-like mass of troops and horses behind him, Yang Guozhu’s heart surged with unceasing heroic passion. Hearing Wang Dou’s words, he smiled slightly and said, “Indeed. Once across the Juma River, our main army can reach the slave camp today.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He added, “But once the army crosses the river, our movements will be even more exposed and the slave bandits will take precautions. For these several dozen li, our army must proceed with caution.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the Xuan-Da army set out, its imposing momentum was no longer concealed. Sporadically, within Laishui territory, they began encountering some Qing scouts from the Plain Red Banner.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These scouts were immediately set upon by the Xuan-Da army’s Night Scouts spread around the army’s perimeter. Most of these scout riders were captured. Perhaps a few fish slipped through the net, but the Qing troops in Zhuozhou could only know that a large Ming force was bearing down on them; the specifics were not so easy to ascertain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou said, “After the vanguard’s scout riders crossed the Juma River, engagements with the slave scouts grew more and more frequent, and among them were slave Bayara soldiers. It seems the slave bandits have become somewhat aware.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Many of the vanguard cavalry were Yang Guozhu’s retainers, including a squad of Night Scouts. Wang Dou’s own Night Scouts were even more famously fierce, and at Yang Guozhu’s request, Wang Dou likewise dispatched a squad of Night Scouts to assist the vanguard’s reconnaissance. The army had already successively captured several Plain Red Banner scouts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yang Guozhu’s tone was full of boldness: “Too late. They won’t have time.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He and Wang Dou looked at each other and laughed heartily. Yang Guozhu passed the order: “The main army will quicken its pace. Once across the Juma River, we will rest briefly, then the entire army will press straight for Zhuozhou.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The army surged forward like a tide. Gazing at the vast sea of banners and the boundless troops and horses, Wang Dou’s chest likewise swelled with heroic passion. He raised his head to the sky and exhaled a long breath, shouting silently in his heart: “Since the Battle of Julu, I, Wang Dou, have returned… returned…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhuozhou.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the west bank of the Liuli River, around the local Gaocun Fort, the ground was densely packed with the camp tents of the Eight Banners’ Manchu Plain Red Banner Qing troops.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Above the camp tents fluttered solid red banners emblazoned with flame dragons baring fangs and claws. From time to time, Qing riders in black helmets with red tassels and red cotton armor galloped out of the camp, or groups of Great Ming women in tattered clothes were forcibly marched into various parts of the camp to be offered to the Qing soldiers encamped there to vent their bestial lusts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Downstream from the main Plain Red Banner camp, along the lower reaches of the Liuli River, spread a dense mass of dilapidated shacks. The shacks covered over a dozen li in every direction, as if a city had sprung up from the plain. The population and valuables the Qing army had seized from various places south of the capital were concentrated in Zhuozhou and Tongzhou, with the greater portion in Zhuozhou.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gathered here were over a hundred thousand seized people, several hundred thousand shi of grain and rice, several hundred thousand head of cattle, horses, pigs and sheep, as well as countless gold and silver, treasures, silks and satins. The livestock and valuables the Qing soldiers had plundered filled more than a dozen surrounding villages and civilian forts. The common people herded here were all left sleeping in the open.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the bitter cold of the twelfth lunar month, with freezing weather and a lack of food and clothing, countless people froze or starved to death. To be able to build a dilapidated shack for shelter was already a luxury. Even those living in the shacks were all gaunt and haggard, every eye filled with despair. Their future unknown, they merely lived on in numbness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The seized commoners were gathered in groups of tens of thousands. Around their encampments, several deep trenches had been dug. Outside the trenches, some Qing guards had pitched tents and patrolled the perimeter from time to time. These men were utterly brutal, entering the gathering areas at the slightest provocation to commit violence. Humiliation, beatings and abuse were routine. The fate of the women was even more tragic; those with any looks were dragged away one by one, their whereabouts unknown.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Anyone who dared flee was captured and tortured to death alive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Many could not bear it, and whole families committed suicide one after another.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Corpses and refuse lay everywhere, yet no one cleared them away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides the brutality and humiliation inflicted by these Eight Banner bannermen, which made people gnash their teeth in hatred, the army’s camp followers likewise earned the bitter loathing of the captured commoners.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those camp followers were all Aha slaves of the Eight Banners, either men of the northeastern tribes, or Mongols, Koreans, Han Chinese, and others. They were commoners seized in the Eight Banners’ earlier waves of plunder, and on campaign they were used for menial labor such as feeding horses, repairing equipment, and filling in moats as cannon-fodder laborers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet these men had not the slightest pity for the newly captured commoners. They strutted behind the bannermen like foxes borrowing a tiger’s ferocity, their brutality and cruelty no less than that of the Eight Banner Manchus. The Koreans among them were especially vicious, shouting everywhere in an unintelligible Korean tongue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some camp followers spoke Chinese; the captured commoners uniformly called them “second Tartars.” In fact, these camp followers’ outward dress was no different from that of the Eight Banner men: all wore Manchu clothing and kept their hair in the queue of the money-rat-tail style.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Huang Taiji proclaimed himself emperor in the ninth year of Chongzhen, he issued a strict edict that all people within his realm must adopt Manchu-style hair and dress, on pain of death for the entire family. From that year onward, within the Qing state, Han clothing and Han dress were no longer seen; everyone dressed exactly like the Manchus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Qing troops guarding the commoners were mostly Plain Red Banner unarmored bannermen. Their brutality went without saying, and the camp followers who abetted them were equally hateful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not far from the Qing camp at Gaocun Fort, at a place called Zhongdaitun, over thirty thousand captured commoners from various places were penned together. Like the other holding points, this place was filled with shacks thrown together haphazardly. Refuse and corpses covered the ground, and a nauseating stench hung in the air. Countless captured commoners lay inside the shacks, seemingly just waiting to die in despair. Many more moved about the holding area with numb expressions, like walking corpses; when they collapsed to the ground, they would never rise again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And in this place, a disturbance had just occurred. Moments before, a Plain Red Banner bannerman, leading over twenty Mongol and Korean Aha slaves, had burst into several shacks and dragged away the women of several households. When those families tried to plead and stop them, they were immediately beaten with the backs of blades and clubs until blood streamed; one person was even hacked to death on the spot, his head severed from his body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The smell of blood still lingered in the cold, clear air. Listening to the hopeless, desolate weeping around him, Wu Daben slammed his fist hatefully into the earth beneath him. Having been neighbors for many days, he knew most of those shack households well; they were mostly people from the Zhending Prefecture area. One of the women taken away he knew even better. Just the night before, for a coarse black steamed bun, that woman had traded her chastity to him in exchange for this food item.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Tartars outside distributed only meager food each day. To stay alive, all manner of evils likewise spread through the camp of captured commoners. Wu Daben was a sturdy man in his thirties, with a full beard and a fierce countenance, and he was quite skilled in fist and foot. Secretly, he held another identity: a Platoon Leader of the Great Ming Embroidered Uniform Guard, garrisoned somewhere in Zhending Prefecture. When the Qing army stormed that city, he too was captured along with the army. Relying on his physical prowess, he could seize more food within the camp.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For this mouthful of food, many people around him gathered at his side, hoping for his protection. Yet in the situation just now, Wu Daben had been powerless. If he had a weapon in hand, he might have been able to fight his way free of those Aha’s encirclement. But he could not escape the pursuit of those Tartar scout riders outside; many had already proven that with their lives.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In Wu Daben’s life, he had had many women, but only that woman from last night, called Ningzhi, held an important place in his heart. Though the two of them had merely transacted last night, Wu Daben could no longer forget her. Watching helplessly as Ningzhi was dragged away by a gang of second Tartars, Wu Daben could only hate his own powerlessness. Fury choked his heart, a stifled breath trapped inside him, yet he did not know how to vent it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He punched the ground a few times, then stood up resentfully and stared blankly at a man beside him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That man was gazing quietly toward the other side of the trench. The weather was bitterly cold; a gust of icy wind blew, seeming to pierce into the bone. Wu Daben could not help shivering all over. He wrapped his sheepskin coat tighter and stamped his feet a few times for warmth. Looking back at that man, he remained motionless in the freezing cold; the chill wind had long since turned his face blue and purple, yet he acted as if nothing were amiss.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Following the man’s gaze, three li away on the other side of the trench lay the main Qing camp. Seeing that the man had been gazing over there for a long time, Wu Daben wondered what there was to look at — wasn’t it the same every day?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wu Daben rubbed his hands, which were swollen and purple from the cold. His hands and feet had long gone numb and stiff, as if he could no longer feel their existence. He glanced around at the ground; there were not even leaves or dead branches around, so lighting a fire for warmth was a pipe dream.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Coupled with the frustration of Ningzhi being taken away, Wu Daben finally could not hold back. He glanced around instinctively and said to the man, “Company Commander Liu, this can’t go on. We must think of a way to escape. If this continues, I fear the two of us will either freeze or starve to death, or be beaten to death by those second Tartars. How wretched…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The man he called Company Commander Liu finally turned around and cast a somber glance at Wu Daben. This man wore a cotton robe and was in his thirties, with an utterly unremarkable face that could be described as plain. Only a pair of slightly sinister eyes hinted that this man might not be as easy to provoke as his appearance suggested.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing the man turn around, Wu Daben instinctively adopted a respectful expression. As the man’s subordinate, he knew his ways all too well: usually silent, yet utterly ruthless. As the Embroidered Uniform Guard Company Commander in Zhending Prefecture, his hands were stained with who knew how many people’s blood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the two of them were captured this time, those Qing troops did not know their identities. After entering this holding point, that man had been constantly observing the surrounding movements, every day the same, and no one knew what he was thinking.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Company Commander Liu swept his gaze over Wu Daben, then turned back. After a long while, he said, “Fukui, have you noticed? The Eastern Slave camp is very different today.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His accent was similar to Wu Daben’s, both from the Hebei region. When he spoke, his flat tone carried a cold, sinister edge.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After saying this, he added thoughtfully, “Perhaps the moment for us to escape is near.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Indeed, at this moment, inside the Eight Banner Manchu Plain Red Banner camp, all was panic and turmoil. Scout riders came and went ceaselessly, each bringing back word that the Xuan-Da army was closing in on Zhuozhou.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Inside Gaocun Fort, the former village headman’s large residence was planted with the gold-threaded dragon banner of the Plain Red Banner’s Gushan Ejen, Yoto, serving as his field headquarters. Since the Battle of Julu, Yoto had suddenly contracted a severe illness and was no longer able to accompany the army on campaign. Thus, in the strategic arrangement he had discussed with Dorgon, his deputy Dudu would command the Right Wing army on the invasion, accompanying Dorgon in raiding Shandong, while Yoto remained in Zhuozhou and other places to guard the seized population and valuables.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During his many days in Zhuozhou, Yoto’s illness had grown increasingly grave. Most banner affairs had been handed over to his two sons to handle. But today the situation was truly critical, and his two sons could not make the decisions. Yoto had no choice but to rise from his sickbed and struggle to deal with military matters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, he reclined on a brocade couch in the hall, wrapped in a thick fur-lined outer coat. Holding a cup of hot tea, he coughed as he listened to the tearful report of Buyantu, the Jalai Janggin of the banner’s Bayara camp.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Inside the main hall, his two sons — the Plain Red Banner Bayara Banner Janggin Luoluohong, Jalai Janggin Luoluohuan — along with several Jalai Janggin and Niru Janggin left to garrison Zhuozhou, were likewise assembled. Like Yoto, each man listened with rapt attention to Buyantu’s account.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your slave has lost over twenty Bayara camp warriors. It can now be confirmed that the Ming army approaching Zhuozhou is precisely the Ming Xuan-Da army that fled in defeat after the great battle of Julu. They came very suddenly. Previously they had been utterly silent, then all at once appeared in the Zhuozhou area, as if they had long been lying in ambush in Laishui and Yizhou…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“They came too fast, so it was only after their main army entered Zhuozhou that the banner’s scout riders became aware. It is estimated they are now less than forty li from the camp. What is more frightening is that the Xuan-Da army has massive troop strength, half infantry and half cavalry, estimated at no fewer than ten thousand men. Moreover, their weapons and equipment are bright and sharp, their military bearing extremely strong; their fighting strength will be no less than at Julu.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Judging by the banners they fly, among them are the forces of Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei, and Wang Dou…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Buyantu’s voice trembled: “Your slave carefully scouted the Ming Wang Dou division. His troops account for half of the Xuan-Da army, and should… should number no fewer than six thousand.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A clatter rang out — Yoto had accidentally knocked his tea cup to the floor. Then he broke into violent coughing. Everyone in the hall was alarmed. Yoto’s eldest son, Luoluohong, rushed forward, crying, “Ama, Ama, are you all right?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His second son, Luoluohuan, also rushed forward just as eagerly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yoto said in a deep voice, \"I'm fine.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He waved his hand, and immediately several servants hurried forward, gently and carefully sweeping away the shards on the floor. Everyone in the hall stared blankly as they bustled about. Though a stove fire burned in the room, an icy chill seemed to stretch on endlessly. Each person felt a coldness inside; they exchanged glances and saw the extremely grim expressions on one another's faces.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yoto also sat there in a daze. After a long while, he said, \"Where did Wang Dou get so many troops? After the great battle at Julu, his soldiers should have all been wiped out. He was just a Mobile Corps Commander of the Ming state with no more than three thousand men. After suffering casualties, how could he come up with another six thousand...\"\u003C\u002Fp>",3083,"2026-06-03T14:05:36.780Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","3f43e7670f7533b60fe82d0b34b6200bdec3660b6edfdb8b9ee110ba6d588ccd","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-286","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-284",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]